Today’s Office of Readings includes a tract from St. John Eudes regarding the mysteries of Christ as lived in our lives and the life of the Church.
I am transcribing it here for you to read. It is a wonderful reflection as we conclude the Church’s liturgical cycle.
My translation of the Italian text I used.
“We must continually develop in ourselves and eventually complete the reality and mysteries of Jesus. Therefore, we must pray that He will carry to completion in us and the Church these mysteries.
“In fact, the mysteries of Jesus have not yet reached their total perfection and completion. They are certainly complete and perfect as much as they concern the person of Jesus, but not yet in us who are his members or in his Church which is his mystical body. The Son of God desires a certain kind of participation, like an extension and continuation of the in us and in all of the Church of the mystery of his incarnation, of his birth, of his infancy, of his hidden life. This happens when it takes form in us, being born in our souls by means of the holy sacraments of baptism and the divine eucharist. He works in this way by having us live a spiritual and interior life that may be hidden with him in God.
“He intends to make perfect in us the mysteries of his passion, death and resurrection. He make present these mysteries by our suffering, dying and rising with him and in him. He desires to communicate with us his glorious and immortal condition that he has in heaven. He obtains this by having us live with him and in him in a glorious and immortal life. This he will accomplish when we will reach it in heaven. In the same manner, he promises to realize in us and in his Church all his other states and mysteries by his communicating with us and by his participation in our lives. St Paul said that Christ grows and reaches his maturity in the Church and that we contribute to this process of development. We effectively cooperate to create that perfect man and to bring Christ to his full maturity (Col. 1:24). Since the perfection of the saints does not arrive at its culmination until the end of time which has been established by God, so too the mysteries of Jesus will not reached the highest and absolute level of their salvific work in individuals nor in the Church until the end of the world. Only on the day of universal judgment will the mystical body arrive at its perfect age.”
A wonderful description of the end times, the Incarnation and our participation in the life, sufferings and resurrection of Jesus!
